Rebecca MacKinnon's postings about work, reading, and ideas from 2004-2011.

January 12, 2006

Congressional hearings to be held on Net Censorship

There will be congressional hearings on how U.S. technology companies are helping to censor China's internet. The Boston Globe's Hiawatha Bray reports this morning:

One of the most aggressive human rights activists in Congress has found a new cause: stamping out Internet censorship in China.

Representative Christopher H. Smith, a New Jersey Republican and
chairman of a House subcommittee on human rights, plans to hold
hearings next month on reports that US Internet companies, including Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.,
aid efforts by the government of China to suppress free speech. The
issue has simmered for years as American companies have raced to enter
the Chinese Internet market, already the second-largest on earth and
rapidly growing.

If Smith makes Internet censorship his next crusade, he won't be
alone. The Congressional Human Rights Caucus also plans February
hearings on the matter.

''We're going to get moving on this,"
said a caucus member, Democratic Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio.
''There are a lot of people in Congress who are very, very concerned."

Ryan
stopped short of calling for legislation. But he noted that the
US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a research body
created by Congress, recently called for legislation requiring American
Internet firms to demand a court order from Chinese authorities before
revealing information about a user. The law would also require US
Internet companies to report such information requests to the US
government.

The heat is on! How will the industry respond? With defensiveness or with proactive action?

...AND IN OTHER CHINA CENSORSHIP NEWS:Businessweek reports that Skype has agreed in its China deal with the Chinese internet company Tom Online to censor politically sensitive words.

First of all, it's obvious to me that the only thing the US government is interested in is promoting CCP bashing on Chinese soil.

On the technology side, there's nothing that we have that they cannot replicate or do better. So any legislation will only negatively impact the bottom line of US companies, and not the desired affect of promoting free speech in China.